


Scream

by tryslora



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Other, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's seventh year, and Hogwarts isn't at all what Neville is used to. But he is a lion, and he will not give in, as he and Seamus survive the tender care of the Carrows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scream

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** JKR owns the Potterverse and these characters. I just like to write about them sometimes. I gain no money from this.

"Scream!" Another crucio, and he couldn't get closer to the floor, couldn't do more than curl in on himself, body bowed tight from the pain. Breathe and breathe again and pray the pain will pass, knowing that it won't be this bad for long and oh Merlin he can get through this. And still she yells, "Scream! Damn you, I want to hear you scream!"

He gasped out, voice as hoarse as if he had been screaming. "No. Won't give you the--" cut off by a gasp as she shocked him with another curse and forced the word out, "pleasure."

The pain dropped away and she came to her knees before him, hauling him up to sit. "Little Longbottom, you try my patience. I've heard what it took to break your father, and how much more to break your mother." She drew her wand down his cheek, pausing with the tip below his chin, forcing him to tip his head back. A short sharp howl, cut off abruptly in the next room, behind closed doors, made her smile. "You see," she whispered. "Your friend screams so perfectly. He gives Alecto such pleasure. Scream for me, little Longbottom. Scream."

#

She sat on the desk, looking down at his crumpled form, and he refused to give her the satisfaction of letting his gaze drop away and stared right back. "I have a plan," she told him. "It came to me, while you writhed so silently on my floor. I am tired of bringing you in and all my lovely marks are gone." She slithered from the desk, cradling his face in both hands in a bizarre mockery of affection, then kissed him gently on the forehead. "You will bear my mark, little Longbottom. To remind you, when you are not with me."

The wand was in her hand before he blinked, tip just in the corner of his left eye, by his nose. He tried not to let her see him sweat, not to see the fear that she would take his eye because how could he continue if he were half-blinded? She started to smile, patting his hair with the other hand. "Ah, sweet, you're scared." She murmured an incantation and he felt the _oh Merlin_ burn of the wandtip, saw the bright flash of orangey red that blinded him with light and pain as she dug it into his skin. He felt the slick slip of the wand parting his skin, carving deeply down to bone and cauterizing as it went, curving up slightly under his eye, then cutting sharply across his cheekbone and curving down again to spiral out by his jaw. He was gasping when she was done, hands clenched and fingernails dug into deep red bleeding furrows in his palm.

But he didn't scream. He wouldn't scream.

Not even when she did it again and again, shaping and molding the river of thick red tissue until she stroked it with one thumb and felt that it was just right. She pressed a cold kiss to the burning skin. "Heal _that_," she whispered, hovering there for another moment before pushing back roughly and plunging the room into darkness with a sharp _Nox_!

#

All he could see in the one eye was the afterimage of the wandburn, all he could feel was the white hot pain in his face, not fading, not going away like everything else had. He tried to breathe through it, as if it were a crucio that refused to end, and closed his eyes against the darkness. He sat with his back against the wall, head thrown back, knees up against his chest and arms wrapped around. And he felt tears slip down over his right cheek, and wondered if he couldn't feel them from his left eye, or if she had burned out his capability to cry on that side.

He sat, shivering, in the haze of pain, only moving when the door opened. He scrambled quickly to his feet, reaching for a wand that wasn't there, plastering himself back against the wall. The voice in the darkness was familiar and welcome, though, thick with accent and hoarse and rough from misuse. "S'me, Nev."

"Seamus."

The other boy sat down next to him, hunched up, shoulder to shoulder as they both tried not to make a sound. They didn't talk about what happened; never had, never would. But they both knew that as long as they helped keep the Carrows occupied the girls were safe.

And Neville knew that the one wouldn't be happy until she'd done what Bellatrix had not. But he wouldn't give her the satisfaction. He'd never scream.


End file.
